Hamels feels honored to start Opening Day

FILE - In this Feb. 23, 2013, file photo, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels delivers against the Houston Astros during an exhibition spring training baseball game in Clearwater, Fla. Hamels says it's an "honor" to start on opening day and he'll "cherish" his first assignment when the Phillies begin the season against the Braves at Atlanta on April 1. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Cole Hamels is itching to get the regular season started. As for the beard that he has grown during the last 10 days ...

“It’s coming off at the end of spring training,” he said. “It’s itchy.”

Instead of heading to Tampa to pitch against the Yankees Saturday afternoon, Hamels stayed behind and got his five innings of work during a minor-league scrimmage on Richie Ashburn Field at the Carpenter Complex in the morning.

The Phillies demurely announced earlier in the week that Hamels would, indeed, be the opening-day starter against the Braves in Atlanta April 1. But you get the feeling his real goal is to make a meaningful start against the Phillies’ National League East rivals in the final series of the regular season come late September.

Advertisement

“They are going to be a team we battle all year,” Hamels said of the Braves, “so to open with them and end with them ... it’s going to be a pretty significant series to see where we stand and set the tone for where we are in the division.

“It really is (an honor). A lot of great pitchers have had that honor, and to be one of them is something I will cherish. To be able to get your team off to the right start sets the tone for the entire season.”

Hamels likes where he stands this spring, even if Triple-A first baseman Cody Overbeck caught a first-inning fastball and launched it for a three-run homer Saturday. Hamels threw 84 pitches and for the first time this spring was able to use all five pitches in the same way he would during the regular season.

Hamels’ spring numbers are hardly of concern to him or the management, which showed how strongly it believes he will go down as one of the best pitchers in franchise history by signing him to a six-year, $144 million contract extension last summer. During the last six seasons the left-hander is in the top 10 of major-league pitchers in WHIP (second, 1.127), strikeouts (sixth, 1,162), wins (sixth, 82), innings (10th, 1,244Ď) and complete games (ninth, 12).

However, he is the exception on a team that has a lot of upside — provided Father Time doesn’t interfere. Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Roy Halladay all are trying to prove that they haven’t gone into a decline steep enough to derail the Phils’ hopes of bouncing back from an 81-81 season in 2012.

While those three are defiant when asked about the sun setting on their prime years and taking the team’s championship hopes beyond the horizon with them, Hamels acknowledges that eras end. His wish is that when the veterans are past their best days, young players will be there to take the torch.

“You don’t want to see it,” Hamels said, “but you understand the game of baseball is a very small window. You have to do very well for the period of time that you have. So I think — even though you don’t want to hear it, it’s more or less just the knowledge that you have to give it everything you can while you can, because it’s going to be taken away really fast and you don’t want to regret anything.

“I think that’s kind of the idea behind what we have to do. We have to perfect everything we can. We have to play as hard as we possibly can. Because it’s going to disappear fast and I don’t want it to disappear. That’s why I still signed here because I firmly believe we have a great team and we can win the World Series ...”

While Howard has been hitting well this spring and Utley, despite his unimpressive Grapefruit League numbers, seems to be moving well on his degenerative knees, Halladay has been the veteran whose March woes have been most distressing.

Hamels insists it would be foolish to dismiss the best right-hander of the last decade too soon.

“If Doc’s not Doc,” Hamels said of Halladay, who pitches Sunday against the Orioles, “OK, now he just went from immortal to still sort of immortal.

“He’s one of the best pitchers in baseball and he knows how to fight to the very last breath. He’s not going to go out there and give up. He still has the best pitches. He has the best sort of game knowledge. He prepares himself to win and he’s going to win.”

As for the Braves, Hamels said he didn’t really notice all the moves they made until spring training arrived.

“I understood the Upton brothers,” he said, “because that’s something pretty rare and at the same time pretty special to be able to play with your brother. I think they are going to have a pretty good time. I’m sure their parents are pretty happy. They only have to buy one uniform.

“They’ve done a really good job with the loss of Chipper, filling the needs that they need to be a winning team. Shoot, they’ve been a winning franchise for a really long time. We’re going to have to battle them really hard this year.”